Baggy jeans vs. bone smashing: how I accidentally provoked Clavicular's army

I thought I was just posting a vibe lol.

The concept for my Reel was simple: casting a spell on the white boys to forget about clavicular and remember the ancient texts. The ancient texts being the grungy, effortless, cool as fuck energy of Y2K skate culture that us Zillenials grew up with.

I expected some “hell yeah” comments or maybe a debate about the best Vans era. Instead, I opened a portal to the f*cking manosphere.

240,000 views later, my notifications aren't full of fashion tips or ex-skater boys reminiscing their childhoods. They are a case study in Clavicular’s influence on young men and his ideologies, where jawlines are "scientific" and women are reduced to "femoids” or subhuman creatures.

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The cult of Clav

I’ve written about it before, but for the uninitiated, Clavicular, real name Braden Peters, is the poster boy for a hyper-fixation on physical dominance. His followers want to look good, but it doesn’t end there; they want to "ascend" through "hardmaxxing", a philosophy that treats the male body like an RPG character to be levelled up through extreme grooming, "bone smashing", and a rigid social hierarchy.

When I told the "white boys" to forget him, I wasn't just critiquing a style. To his followers, I was attacking their entire religion, and their god. The vitriol in my comments, men calling me a "foid" (shorthand for "female humanoid") proved that for this corner of the internet, fashion isn't about self-expression. It’s about power.

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The politics of the look

This goes beyond some "guy thing". This is a massive shift, in which aesthetics are being used as Trojan horses for radical ideologies.

We see it in other subcultures too. The tradwife trap, which on the surface looks like 100% cotton and sourdough. Underneath, it signals a return to patriarchal structures and a rejection of modern rights for women. No bank account? No problem! Daddy will take care of it while you tend to the garden and lose your independence.

Same goes with the “old money” mirage, which appears to be quiet luxury, but is actually quietly reinforcing the idea that class and status are inherited traits, and mirroring traditionalist political leanings.

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Is skate culture really the antidote?

Yes and no. A lot of these diehard Clav groupies were commenting about how I was encouraging a lazy, slobbish, stoner lifestyle. And yeah, maybe some skaters are like that. The stereotype is certainly pinned to the subculture.

But the reason my Reel really hit a nerve is because early 2000s skate culture represents their worst fear: imperfection. Skate culture is about falling down, scraped knees, and oversized clothes that hide your "genetics". It’s a subculture built on rebellion and community, not "mogging" your friends to prove you’re the alpha.

By calling for a return to the "ancient texts", I was inadvertently calling for a return to a world where we are allowed to be messy, human, and most importantly not obsessed with the "science" of our collarbones.

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What I gather from this absolute CHAOS

I posted a Reel about baggy jeans and accidentally became a threat to someone's entire cosmology. That's not a sentence I expected to write this week.

The fact that a 30-second clip of skate references could provoke that level of ideological fury tells you more about where we are than any of the comments did. Imperfection isn't just unfashionable to these guys. It's dangerous, it’s a crack in the worldview. If you're allowed to be messy and still be worthy of taking up space, the whole hierarchy falls apart.

I'm not naive enough to think a fashion Reel is going to dismantle the manosphere. But I do think there's something kind of radical about just existing in a way that doesn't optimise for dominance.

Like scraped knees. Oversized jeans. Band practice in the garage. Maybe even a little eyeliner. But also, not mogging anyone. Still being hot asf. Touching grass, even better, asphalt. Not dehumanising women.

The ancient texts were onto something. We must return.

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